The live event last night was pretty interesting. Only about an hour or so long. Atlus is bringing a new SMT game to the Switch. NISA is releasing a "Complete" edition of Disgaea 5 for the Switch. Skyrim is releasing on the switch (not sure if I'm interested in that at all). Xenoblade is getting another game for the Switch. FIFA is ... (No one really cares about Soccer, right?)

The console is, relatively, cheap. I'm guessing the hardware is minimal inside the thing. No optical drive so you don't get to play video discs (kind of a down side). And from what I gather it won't have very much internal storage space, and will rely on removable storage like the Wii and Wii U did.

I did place a preorder this morning when I woke up. Figure I can always move it around or cancel it if I decide later I don't want it. But the new Zelda game is all I'm really after at this time.

Nope, I am not going to support Nintendo and their quest for gimmick systems. All they need to do is build a normal system like the Gamecube, make sure it can support 1080p or higher resolutions while keeping steady frame rates, and the developers and buyers will flock to them like horny sheep.

Pretty much what Shaowstrike said. I have no interest at all in Nintendo's silly little quest to be the special unique snowflake of consoles. I stopped caring about Mario, Zelda, and Metroid a long time ago, they have nothing to tempt me with. From some reactions I've seen around the web, I have a feeling I'm not alone in that opinion. This thing is going to go the way of the Wii U, only faster.

Also, Nvidia already beat them to this form factor for a console a long time ago, and look how well Shields are selling these days.

I will likely buy a Switch. I think they're heading in the right direction. Shaow and Turin said it was gimmicky, but I think that's kinda the point.

After the PS2, the next console I bought was a Wii. I see no reason to ever purchase a Playstation or Xbox because it's just a worse version of my pc. Nintendo offers something different and something exclusive. You may not like what they have to offer, but you can bet they're the only ones serving it up.

The Switch addresses one of my hangups about purchasing a Wii U, that being that Nintendo had split it's quality library between their console and handheld market. You'd need two devices to have access to the complete library, and I wasn't willing to go for that. The Switch appears to merge the two meaning I'll only need a singular device to gain access to the full suite.

The two features of the Switch I like are the high precision feedback on the rumble and being able to carry the game around with me as I want without being tethered to the base like the Wii U is. Currently if you walk away from the Wii U with the gamepad more than like... 15-20 feet or a few walls in between it starts throwing up errors. Switch fixes that.

The motion control looks like a vast improvement over the Wii/Wii U. Abandoning the camera/scanner system in favor of high precision gyrometers and accelerometers. While I don't care for games that focus on the use of motion controls, the technology being better makes it easier to introduce the stuff into other games like using the PS4 Six Axis dual shocks for Gravity Rush 2 motions.

I'm all for gimmicks. Gives me a reason to actually look at it, considering Sony and Microsoft's systems are so indistinguishable from each other that there is very little reason to even look at the two. Even their game libraries are pretty much identical. Wii U has been fun as all hell with a group of people.

____________________________

George Carlin wrote:

I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.

There really is no reason to buy an Xbox now. Sony still has a few decent exclusive titles that they won't port over to PC, so if you're into those, a PS4 is the only way to play them. Series like God of War, Uncharted, Infamous, and yes The Last of Us were enough to get me to spend the money.

Now, the reason I stopped by this post, Nintendo let loose with the details of how they plan to handle online game lobbies and voice chat. Get this bit of nonsense, you have to connect your smartphone. The Switch doesn't have any built in microphones, or even a port to connect one. My favorite bit, after the first few months after release, when this "service" will be free, they plan to start charging for it. That's right, they are going to charge a monthly fee to let you use your smartphone to talk to other Switch users.

Per the video, this entirely a hardware "issue", and also not really an issue.

The controllers use electromagnetism to communicate, not magic, which can be blocked by objects, just like wifi signals, or light, or radio waves, or cell phone signals, etc. The solution is to not block your own signal, just like the solution to fix the issue of car crashes is to not drive into a wall.

Granted, the Wii controller range was absurd, and I'm pretty sure they did use magic on those things. But I guess Nintendo is no longer sacrificing a child's soul to produce each console. Shame on them for cutting corners.

Kind of is an issue due to the size of the controllers and the varying sizes of people's hands and how they hold the controllers. I've never had a wireless controller become blocked just by holding it. And I've never had a car crash into a wall because my hands were twice as big as someone else's and I decided to hold my wheel at 6 and 12 instead of 10 and 2.

Can't say I've ever had my PS3/4, 360, Wii or Wii U controllers lose connectivity because of how I was holding them. (Infrared tracking thing on the Wii not counting) The main difference being that the way those controllers were designed, and their sizes, your hand was never able to cover the whole thing.

I'd imagine it's just a weak transmitter in the unit. Probably to prop up their 20 hour battery life. That can't go through small things like fingers.

Would like to get one, but not right away. I need to see one of two things first:

1. A solid game library.

2. A solid virtual console.

So far, there's neither, so I'll wait on the sideline.

I own a Wii U and I really do enjoy it. The few games I have for it are great, and the limited virtual console games I bought are fun too... it's nice playing the classics on the game pad. That said, I never liked the Wii U's gamepad as a compliment to what I was playing on the TV... I only really liked it as a way to play off the TV. The StarFox Zero game was exactly what was wrong with the Wii U... all we needed was a pretty, snappy HD StarFox. Instead, we got this awkward game where you were expected to view two screens at once, preventing any semblance of truly relaxing gameplay.

I like the Switch because it's really built to be a gamer's system. Its gimmick is simply providing more ways to play, not forcing you into weird controller setups in order to enjoy games.

I just need MORE than Zelda though, and indie games don't do much for me. I don't want to drop $300 on a system to play smartphone-quality games.

Joy con connectivity issues are real. I was actually having issues with the right Joy Con not registering button presses, but I was resting my hands on my knees in my chair, leaning forward. And the joy cons in my hands naturally (comfortably) tilted inward toward each other. Every time the tip of the right joy con came close to my left hand or arm (about 2 inches) it would start missing button presses (Left/Right triggers when navigating menus on Eshop was where I noticed it). Sitting about 7 feet away from my TV across my living room.

Modders have confirmed that the issue show up with the Left Joy Con more often due to a weaker antenna design compared to the Right, but both transmitters appear to be extremely low power and can't handle even moderate distances with normal gripping if something (anything) comes between them and the base.

The Grip/Charging Grip feels a bit awkward to me. But apparently that helps. I have a "Pro Pad" to play my games, so I just put my Joy Cons on the charger and left them there.

Only started the second tutorial shrine on Zelda. Frame rate dips are noticeable. Biggest annoyance so far is how fragile weapons are. A metal sword breaks very quickly. I found a woodcutter's axe, cut down a couple trees, and my axe proceeded to blow up. It feels like I'm playing Last of Us, where I could use a lead pipe twice before it was unusable... I'm pretty sure I could smash in 100s of skulls with a lead pipe, no problem.

But, other than weak *** equipment, my impressions in that short time are positive. Oh, other than the stupid "Here's an in game key item that looks exactly like the console you are playing... strange isn't it?". I hate that.

I've become a bit disappointed in the Shrines so far. Done 8 of them, and lots of exploring and stuff.

But these Shrines are just one puzzle with a few little obstacles leading up to it that give you clues on what to do for the solution to the puzzle. And they each seem to have a "hidden" chest which just requires a continuation of the puzzle or what you learned from the obstacles. If this is what the shrines are moving forward, no wonder there are dozens of them. They just took a few dungeons and spread each room out over the entire world.

And while playing, my left joycon stopped responding all together. I haven't tried turning it back on, but I ended up just turning off the joycons and switching to the pro pad. I'm hoping that nothing is wrong, and it just needed a reboot.

Admittedly I'm only a few hours in, but I only have two major complaints about Breath of the Wild so far.

1 - Weapons have ZERO durability. Why does a metal sword explode after a dozen hits? Why does a bow break after firing 5-10 arrows? I get that equipment is intentionally disposable, but it feels like they went pretty far overboard with it.

2 - The controls are weird and there's no way to change them. Who decided it was a good idea to make it impossible to press the dash and jump buttons at the same time? Seriously, did no one play test this?

Nintendo announced they are halting production of the much sought after "NES Classic Edition". While the system was nothing special, Nintendo's just pissing people off with their seemingly artificial scarcity of all their systems. And what they just announced with the NES Classic just cemented that feeling for most people still hoping to find one.

The answer is "Piracy" but that really shouldn't be the answer. People want to do things the right way, but Nintendo just doesn't want to let people do it. Same with Amiibos. I'm probably going to go buy an NFC writer and pick up a bunch of NFC cards for a few bucks and just get all these rare and impossible to find Amiibos for my systems. Added bonus, I don't have to carry around a bunch of toys, I can just have a card deck case with all the cards in them.

What's sad is you can literally fit the entire NES library (all of it. US, Japan, UK, and every variant in between), a program to run them, and an episode of most 30 minute tv shows (720p, not 1080p) on a single CD. And people want to pay for it, considering how easy it would be just to pirate it so Nintendo is just throwing money away.

I'd have understood that kind of mentality during N64 vs PS1 vs XBox when they still thought they were the top dog and could make bone head decisions, but now?

____________________________

George Carlin wrote:

I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.

To this day, I've never seen a Switch at any of my local retailers. During my work trip these past two months I did see two Switches one day at Walmart. That was in a town with 60,000 people. They didn't last long (I wasn't after them, I just always walk thru Electronics when ever I go shopping). I suspect that SNES Classic will have similar stocking issues, even though they will produce "significantly more". (Some BS PR wording there).

The Switch's library is still dismal. With Virtual Console still unavailable, and I'm pretty sure third party things like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc video not available. Does it even have an Internet Browser yet? I've not powered mine up in a couple months.

Too bad Nintendo has enough fans out there that they'll never actually feel the repercussions for how they handle this stuff.